u/JazzyFingerGuns

Hey there, I am currently working on a new, short, low level campaign and I had the idea for what will probably be an encounter or scene towards the end of the campaign (about level 5 to 7). During this encounter the PCs will relive one of the most important moments from their backstory as some kind of malicious memory and they have to find a way to break out of it.

This is supposed to be some kind of trap the BBEG set up to protect their evil lair and it is also supposed to be a way to incorporate the PCs backstory without having to do character focused story arcs, for which there won't be enough time in this campaign.

My question now is, are there any traps, spells, or similar things that already exist that would work for this or at least something that I could expand on? If not, how would you build this idea? What kind of challenges would you implement and how would you run it (combat encounter, victory point subsystem, complex trap, etc)?

I just thought of the idea and I could really use some pointers to make it work. Thank you in advance!

I am currently building a backup char for my kingmaker campaign, which is not needed but I like building and why the hell not.

Since it's a running campaign, the "party role" I'm in is pretty fixed, which currently is a druid "gish" who is the dedicated healer, battlefield controller, able to go frontline, cook, and the overall nature/ wisdom based knowing stuff guy.

For my backup char I was thinking going in a very similar direction by focusing on the custodian and witness apparitions. Custodian gives me nature and healing, witness gives me the gish capabilities. I want to enhance that last part by going a) spirit warrior and later sixth pillar as my free archetype and b) by being an aiuvarin human and the elf step shenanigans for the liturgist subclass.

My biggest question right now is... do build this char around Str or Dex for the weapon and unarmed attacks? Str would probably go with a longsword, dex would utilize a rapier.

Dex based would make it easier to fulfill the requirements for sixth pillar but str would make me better at athletics which I wanted to utilise since I will always have a hand free to do so. I also fear that dex based has a lower damage output in melee. I won't be the biggest damage dealer anyway but if i don't trigger the deadly from the rapier, the baseline damage is much lower.

I posted both pathbuilder links below. Let me hear your thoughts.

Str based ( https://pathbuilder2e.com/launch.html?build=1457655 )

Dex based ( https://pathbuilder2e.com/launch.html?build=1457656 )